Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (/ˈstÉ›fÉ™niË dÊ'ÉœrməˈnÉ'tÉ™/ STEF-É™-nee jur-mÉ™-
Gaga rose to prominence with her debut album The Fame (2008), a critical and commercial success which produced global chart-topping singles such as "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". A follow-up EP, The Fame Monster (2009), was met with a similar reception and released the successful singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone", and "Alejandro". Her second full-length album Born This Way was released in 2011, topping the charts in more than 20 countries, including the United States, where it sold over one million copies in its first week. The album produced number one single "Born This Way". Her third album Artpop, released in 2013, topped the US charts and included the successful singles "Applause" and "Do What U Want". In 2014, Gaga released a collaborative jazz album with Tony Bennett titled Cheek to Cheek, which debuted at number one in the United States and became her third consecutive number one album in the country.
Gaga is noted for her diverse contributions to the music industry via her self-empowering messages, fashion, and live performances. With global album and single sales of 28 million and 140 million respectively, as of April 2015, she is one of the best-selling musicians of all time. Her achievements include 13 Guinness World Records, 6 Grammy Awards, and a Songwriters Hall of Fame's Contemporary Icon Awardâ€"first artist ever to winâ€"for "attaining an iconic status in pop culture". She regularly appears on Billboard's Artists of the Year lists and Forbes's power and earnings rankings. In 2013, Time listed Gaga as one of the Most Influential People of the Decade. Outside of her music, she is noted for her philanthropic endeavors and social activism, including LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS prevention. In 2012, Gaga established the Born This Way Foundation (BTWF), a non-profit organization that focuses on youth empowerment.
Life and career
1986â€"2004: Early life
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born on March 28, 1986 at Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital to a Catholic family. She is the elder daughter of Cynthia Louise "Cindy" (Bissett; born c. 1955), and internet entrepreneur Joseph Anthony "Joe" Germanotta, Jr. Gaga is of 75 percent Italian ancestry, and also has French Canadian ancestry. Her sister Natali (born c. 1992) is a fashion student. Despite her affluent upbringing on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Gaga says that her parents "both came from lower-class families, so we've worked for everythingâ€"my mother worked eight to eight out of the house, in telecommunications, and so did my father." From age eleven she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school on Manhattan's Upper East Side. She described her academic life in high school as "very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure": "I used to get made fun of for being either too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn't fit in, and I felt like a freak." Gaga began playing the piano at the age of four, wrote her first piano ballad at thirteen, and started to perform at open mic nights by the age of fourteen. She performed lead roles in high school productions, including Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. She also appeared in a very small role as a mischievous classmate in the television drama series The Sopranos in a 2001 episode titled "The Telltale Moozadell" and auditioned for New York shows without success.
After high school, her mother encouraged her to apply for the Collaborative Arts Project 21 (CAP21), a musical theater training conservatory at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. One of 20 students to gain early admission, she, aged 17, lived in an NYU dorm on 11th Street. In addition to sharpening her songwriting skills, she composed essays and analytical papers on art, religion, social issues, and politics, including a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst. She also auditioned for various roles and won the part of an unsuspecting diner customer for MTV's Boiling Points, a prank reality television show.
2005â€"07: Career beginnings
Gaga withdrew from CAP21 at 19, in the second semester of her sophomore year, deciding to focus on her musical career. Her father agreed to pay her rent for a year, on the condition that she re-enroll at Tisch if unsuccessful. "I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate shit until somebody would listen," she remembers. Settled in a small apartment on Rivington Street towards the summer of 2005, Gaga recorded a couple of songs with hip-hop singer Grandmaster Melle Mel, for an audio book accompanying the children's book The Portal in the Park, by Cricket Casey. She also began a band called the Stefani Germanotta Band (SGBand) with some friends from NYU â€" guitarist Calvin Pia, bassist Eli Silverman, drummer Alex Beckmann and booking manager Frank Fredericks â€" in September of that year. The band played a mixture of songs: some self-penned alongside classic rock numbers like Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Mak'er". Playing in bars like the Greenwich Village's The Bitter End and the Lower East Side's the Mercury Lounge, the band developed a small fan base and caught the eye of music producer Joe Vulpis. Soon after arranging time in Vulpis' studio in the months that followed, SGBand were selling their extended plays Words and Red and Blue (both 2005) at gigs around New York while becoming a local fixture of the downtown Lower East Side club scene.
In March 2006, Gaga met music producer Rob Fusari. SGBand reached their career peak at the 2006 Songwriters Hall of Fame New Songwriters Showcase at The Cutting Room in June where Wendy Starland, a musician, appeared as a talent scout for Fusari. Starland informed Fusari â€" who was searching for a female singer to front a new band â€" of Gaga's ability and contacted her. With SGBand disbanded, Gaga traveled daily to New Jersey to work on songs she had written and compose new material with the music producer. While in collaboration, Fusari compared some of her vocal harmonies to those of Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen. Fusari claims that the two began dating in May 2006, and that he created the "Lady Gaga" moniker after the Queen song "Radio Ga Ga". Fusari said that Gaga was in the process of trying to come up with a stage name when she received a text message from Fusari that read "Lady Gaga." He explained, "Every day, when Stef came to the studio, instead of saying hello, I would start singing 'Radio Ga Ga'. That was her entrance song" and that the text message was the result of a predictive text glitch that changed "radio" to "lady". Fusari said she texted back, "That's it," and declared, "Don't ever call me Stefani again."
Fusari and Gaga established a company titled Team Lovechild in which they recorded and produced electropop tracks and sent them to music industry executives. Joshua Sarubin, the head of A&R at Def Jam Recordings, responded positively and vied for the record company to take a chance on her "unusual and provocative" performance. After having his boss Antonio "L.A." Reid in agreement, Gaga was signed to Def Jam in September 2006 with the intention of having an album ready in nine months. However, she was dropped by the label after only three months â€" a period of her life that would later inspire her treatment for the music video for her 2011 single "Marry the Night". Devastated, Gaga returned to the solace of the family home for Christmas and the nightlife culture of the Lower East Side. She became increasingly experimental: fascinating herself with emerging neo-burlesque shows, go-go dancing at bars dressed in little more than a bikini in addition to experimenting with drugs. Her relationship with Fusari also ended in January 2007. She became a go-go dancer at St. Jerome's, a Rivington Street dive in New York's lower East Side. Her father Joe, however, did not understand the reason behind her drug intake and could not look at her for several months. "I was onstage in a thong, with a fringe hanging over my ass thinking that had covered it, lighting hairsprays on fire, go-go dancing to Black Sabbath and singing songs about oral sex. The kids would scream and cheer and then we'd all go grab a beer. It represented freedom to me. I went to a Catholic school but it was on the New York underground that I found myself." It was then when she became romantically involved with a heavy metal drummer in a relationship and break-up she likened to the musical film Grease: "I was his Sandy, and he was my Danny, and I just broke." He later became an inspiration behind some of her later songs.
During this time, she met performance artist Lady Starlight, who helped mold her on-stage persona. Starlight explained that, upon their first meeting, Gaga wanted to perform with her to songs she had recorded with Fusari. Like SGBand, the pair soon began performing at many of the downtown club venues like the Mercury Lounge, The Bitter End, and the Rockwood Music Hall. Their live performance art piece was known as "Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue" and, billed as "The Ultimate Pop Burlesque Rockshow", was a low-fi tribute to 1970s variety acts. Soon after, the two were invited to play at the 2007 Lollapalooza music festival in August that year. The show was critically acclaimed, and their performance received positive reviews. Having initially focused on avant-garde electronic dance music, Gaga had found her musical niche when she began to incorporate pop melodies and the glam rock of David Bowie and Queen into her music. While Gaga and Starlight were busy performing, producer Rob Fusari continued to work on the songs he had created with Gaga. Fusari sent these songs to his friend, producer and record executive Vincent Herbert. Herbert was quick to sign her to his label Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records, upon its establishment in 2007. Gaga later credited Herbert as the man who discovered her, adding "I really feel like we made pop history, and we're gonna keep going." Having served as an apprentice songwriter under an internship at Famous Music Publishing, which was later acquired by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Gaga subsequently struck a music publishing deal with Sony/ATV. As a result, she was hired to write songs for Britney Spears and labelmates New Kids on the Block, Fergie, and The Pussycat Dolls. At Interscope, singer-songwriter Akon recognized her vocal abilities when she sang a reference vocal for one of his tracks in studio. Akon then convinced Interscope Geffen A&M Chairman and CEO Jimmy Iovine to form a joint deal by having her also sign with his own label Kon Live, making her his "franchise player."
Towards the end of 2007, her former management company introduced her to songwriter and producer RedOne, whom they also managed. The first song she produced with RedOne was "Boys Boys Boys", a mash-up inspired by Mötley Crüe's "Girls, Girls, Girls" and AC/DC's "T.N.T.". Gaga continued her collaboration with RedOne in the recording studio for a week on her debut album and also joined the roster of Cherrytree Records, an Interscope imprint established by producer and songwriter Martin Kierszenbaum, after co-writing four songs with Kierszenbaum including the singles "Christmas Tree" and "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)". Despite her secure record deal, she admitted that there was fear about her being too "racy", "dance-orientated" and "underground" for the mainstream market. Her response: "My name is Lady Gaga, I've been on the music scene for years, and I'm telling you, this is what's next."
2008â€"10: The Fame and The Fame Monster
By 2008, Gaga relocated to Los Angeles, California in order to work extensively with her record label to complete her debut album and set up her own creative team called the Haus of Gaga, modeled on Andy Warhol's Factory. The Fame was first released on August 19, 2008 to slow radio play. Gaga supported it by performing around Europe and in small gay clubs around the US in addition to being billed as a supporting artist on the North American leg of New Kids on the Block's reunion concert tour. A sleeper hit, lead single "Just Dance", had preceded the album's release by four months but only hit the summit of the international charts in January 2009, provoking the instant success of the album, earning her first Grammy Award nomination (for Best Dance Recording) and becoming one of the best-selling singles worldwide. Gaga achieved a greater unexpected success when "Poker Face", another sleeper hit, reached number one in most major music markets worldwide in early 2009, selling 9.8 million singles worldwide. It won the award for Best Dance Recording at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, with nominations for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
The Fame itself was nominated for Album of the Year while winning Best Dance/Electronica Album at the same ceremony. Contemporary critics lauded the album, describing it as an exploration of her obsession with fame and the intricacies of a rich and famous lifestyle, noting its combination of genres "from Def Leppard drums and hand claps to metal drums on urban tracks", the inspiration drawn from 1980s synthpop and incorporation of dance music with clear hooks. The Fame went to number one in Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland and the UK and appeared in the top five in Australia, the US and 15 other countries. It also stayed atop the Dance/Electronic Albums chart for 106 non-consecutive weeks and, since its release, has sold over 12 million copies worldwide. The album's success spawned many 2009 honors including Billboard magazine's Rising Star award and the accumulation of 3 of 9 MTV Video Music Awards nominations, winning Best New Artist with the video for her single "Paparazzi" gaining Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects. In addition to being an opening act on the Pussycat Dolls' 2009 Doll Domination Tour in Europe and Oceania, she also embarked on her own worldwide concert tour The Fame Ball Tour which ran from March to September 2009.
While she traveled the globe, she wrote The Fame Monster, an EP of eight songs released in November 2009. Each song, dealing with the darker side of fame from personal experience, is expressed through a monster metaphor. Making Gaga the first artist in digital history to have three singles (alongside "Just Dance" and "Poker Face") to pass the four million mark in digital sales, its lead single "Bad Romance" topped the charts in eighteen countries and reached the top two in the US, Australia and New Zealand while accruing the Grammy Awards for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Music Video. The second single "Telephone", which features Beyoncé, was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and became Gaga's fourth UK number one single; its accompanying music video, although controversial, received positive reception from contemporary critics who praised her for "the musicality and showmanship of Michael Jackson and the powerful sexuality and provocative instincts of Madonna." Her following single "Alejandro" paired Gaga with fashion photographer Steven Klein for a music video similarly as controversial â€" critics complimented its ideas and dark nature but the Catholic League attacked Gaga for her alleged use of blasphemy. Despite the controversy surrounding her music videos, they made Gaga the first artist to gain over one billion viral views on video-sharing website YouTube. At the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, Gaga won 8 of her 13 nominations, including Video of the Year for "Bad Romance" (with "Telephone" also nominated), which made her the first female artist to be nominated twice for the award. In addition, The Fame Monster garnered a total of six nominations at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards â€" equating to the amount of Grammy nominations her debut received â€" winning Best Pop Vocal Album and earning her a second-consecutive nomination for Album of the Year. The Fame Monster and the 2010 compilation The Remix were Gaga's final releases under Cherrytree Records. While her reasons for departing the label are unknown, her manager Troy Carter stated in 2011 that they still collaborate with label head Martin Kierszenbaum on strategies for marketing Gaga overseas.
The success of The Fame Monster allowed Gaga to start her second worldwide concert tour, The Monster Ball Tour, just weeks after the release of the album and months after having finished The Fame Ball Tour. Upon finishing in May 2011, the critically acclaimed and commercially accomplished tour ran for over one and a half years and grossed $227.4 million, making it the highest-grossing for a debut headlining artist. Concerts performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City were filmed for a HBO television special titled Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden. The special accrued one of its five Emmy Award nominations and has since been released on DVD and Blu-ray. Gaga also performed songs from the album at international events such as the 2009 Royal Variety Performance where she sang "Speechless", a power ballad, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II; the 52nd Grammy Awards where her opening performance consisted of the song "Poker Face" and a piano duet of "Speechless" in a medley of "Your Song" with Elton John; and the 2010 BRIT Awards where a performance of an acoustic rendition of "Telephone" followed by "Dance in the Dark" dedicated to the late fashion designer and close friend, Alexander McQueen, supplemented her hat-trick win at the awards ceremony. Other performances might have included her participation in Michael Jackson's This Is It concert series at London's O2 Arena. "I was actually asked to open for Michael on his tour," she stated. "We were going to open for him at the O2 and we were working on making it happen. I believe there was some talk about us, lots of the openers, doing duets with Michael on stage."
In 2009, she collaborated with consumer electronic company Monster Cable Products to create a pair of in-ear jewel-encrusted headphones titled Heartbeats. "They are designed to be the first ever fashion accessories that double as the absolute best sonically sounding headphones in the world," she commented. Gaga also partnered with Polaroid in January 2010 as their Creative Director. Excited about "blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era," Gaga unveiled the first trio of new products called Grey Label: a pair of picture-taking sunglasses, a paperback-sized mobile printing unit and an updated version of the traditional Polaroid camera at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. But her collaboration with past producer and ex-boyfriend Rob Fusari led to her production team, Mermaid Music LLC, being sued in March 2010 when he claimed that he was entitled to a 20% share of the company's earnings. Gaga's lawyer, Charles Ortner, described the agreement with Fusari as "unlawful" and declined to comment, but five months later, the New York Supreme Court dismissed both the lawsuit and a countersuit by Gaga. In addition to such strife, Gaga was tested borderline positive for lupus, but claimed not to be affected by the symptoms. The revelations caused considerable dismay among fans, leading to Gaga addressing the matter in an interview with Larry King, saying she hopes to avoid symptoms by maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
2011â€"12: Born This Way
Gaga released her second studio album, Born This Way, on May 23, 2011. Described as a marriage of electronic music with metal, the singer referred the album as "about what keeps us up at night and what makes us afraid". Gaga characterized it as "something so much deeper than a wig or lipstick or a fucking meat dress". Upon release, the album received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised its range of different styles and her vocals. Born This Way sold 1.108 million copies in its first week in the US, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and topped the charts in more than 20 other countries. In addition to exceeding 8 million copies in worldwide sales, Born This Way received three Grammy Award nominations, including her third Album of the Year listing. In March 2012, Gaga was ranked fourth on Billboard's list of top moneymakers of 2011, grossing $25,353,039, which included sales from Born This Way and her Monster Ball Tour.
The album's lead single, "Born This Way", was first sung live at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. It debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the 19th number-one debut and the 1,000th number-one single in the history of the charts. Second single "Judas" also peaked within the top ten in several major musical markets, while "The Edge of Glory", first a commercial success in digital outlets, was later released as a single to rave reviews from critics. Gaga also released "You and I" and "Marry the Night" as the following singles from Born This Way. Both songs failed to match the international success that their predecessors achieved. While filming the video for "You and I" in July 2011, she met actor and model Taylor Kinney. The two began dating soon afterwards. Gaga was later ranked as the second most-played artist of 2011 in the UK by the PPL.
Throughout 2011, Gaga continued her musical endeavors by pairing with veteran artists like Tony Bennett to record a jazz version of "The Lady Is a Tramp". She also lent her vocals to an original duet with Elton John for the animated feature film Gnomeo & Juliet. The song, "Hello, Hello", was released without Gaga's vocals but the duet version features in the film. The singer held a one-of-a-kind concert at the Sydney Town Hall in promotion of Born This Way and at the celebration of former US president Bill Clinton's 65th birthday, wearing a blond wig as a nod to the famous performance of Marilyn Monroe for John F. Kennedy and changing the lyrics to "You and I" specifically for the performance. Televised appearances included her own Thanksgiving Day television special, titled A Very Gaga Thanksgiving, which was critically acclaimed, attained 5.749 million American viewers, and spawned the release of her fourth extended play A Very Gaga Holiday. In May 2012, Gaga also guest-starred as an animated version of herself on the 23rd season finale of The Simpsons titled "Lisa Goes Gaga". The following month, she announced her first fragrance in association with Coty, Inc., Lady Gaga Fame, which was released worldwide in September 2012.
The accompanying tour for Born This Way, titled the Born This Way Ball, began at the end of April 2012 at Seoul's Olympic Stadium in South Korea. Although the tourâ€"consisting of 110 shows across the globeâ€"was a commercial success with general critical acclaim, it faced protests from several religious groups who viewed the tour as satanic and against religious values. The opposition came mainly from the Islamic Defenders Front, causing a cancellation in the Indonesian city of Jakarta, where Gaga was denied a license to perform. Due to a labral tear of her right hip, Gaga announced on February 12, 2013, that the remaining tour dates of her Born This Way Ball were canceled.
2013â€"14: Artpop and Cheek to Cheek
New songs for Gaga's third studio album, Artpop, were beginning to take definite form as she worked with producer Fernando Garibay in early 2012. Work on the project continued well into the Born This Way Ball tour, with co-manager Vincent Herbert promising "insane, great records" in a May 2012 interview. Gaga already confirmed that she had the hip surgery, and was recovering. She yearned to make audiences have "a really good time" with Artpop, crafting the album to mirror "a night at the club". "When you listen to it, it really flows nicely. It's really fun to pop in with your friends. I really wrote it for me and my friends to pop in from start to finish."
Artpop was released on November 6, 2013 to mixed reviews. Nevertheless, it became her second number-one album in the United States with first week sales of 258,000 copies, and spawned successful singles in "Applause" and "Do What U Want", featuring R&B singer R. Kelly. A third release, "G.U.Y.", became Gaga's weakest performing hit to date. Gaga embarked on the accompanying ArtRave: The Artpop Ball tour several months later, building upon concepts from her ArtRave promotional event. Scooping up $83 million, the itinerary saw the singer visit new cities as well as several locations initially included in the Born This Way Ball tour. Meanwhile, Gaga split from longtime manager Troy Carter over "creative differences", and by June 2014, she and new manager Bobby Campbell joined Artist Nation, the artist management division of Live Nation Entertainments.
Gaga starred in Robert Rodriguez's film Machete Kills as La Chameleón. The picture, released on October 11, 2013, was poorly received critically and commercially. Her performance earned her a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Supporting Actress. The singer also hosted the November 16, 2013 episode of Saturday Night Live, closing out the program with a performance of "Do What U Want" with Kelly. Later that month, she held her second Thanksgiving Day television special on ABC, Lady Gaga and the Muppets' Holiday Spectacular, where she played a selection of songs with The Muppets, Elton John, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and RuPaul. Gaga had a cameo in another Robert Rodriguez film, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, released on August 22, 2014. She was confirmed as the Versace's spring-summer 2014 face with a campaign called "Lady Gaga For Versace".
Besides her film endeavors, Gaga was also involved in other musical ventures. She collaborated with American jazz singer Tony Bennett on an album of jazz standards called Cheek to Cheek. It was released on September 19, 2014, and debuted atop the Billboard 200, with first week sale of 131,000 copies, becoming Gaga's third consecutive number-one record in the United States. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. To promote the album, the duo embarked on the Cheek to Cheek Tour, which began with a two-night run at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas and is scheduled to play across Europe and North America during the first half of 2015. In September 2014, Gaga released her second fragrance in association with Coty Inc., named Eau de Gaga.
2015: Upcoming fifth studio album and American Horror Story
By December 2014, Gaga confirmed that she had begun working on her next album, with Billboard reporting that the singer was working with producer RedOne again. Producer Giorgio Moroder also confirmed that he is working on the album. Moreover, Gaga collaborated with Diane Warren on a song for the documentary The Hunting Ground called "'Till It Happens To You". In February 2015, Gaga became engaged to Taylor Kinney. At the 87th Academy Awards on February 22, 2015, she performed a tribute to The Sound of Music, singing a medley of songs from the film. The performance was the most talked-about moment on the Internet, triggering over 214 thousand interactions per minute globally on Facebook. Announced as a surprise attraction, Gaga performed a piano version of John Lennon's "Imagine" at the opening ceremony of the 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan. According to Eurosport, she was paid US$2 million for the 6-minute performance. On June 18, 2015, Gaga received at the 46th Annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards the first ever "Contemporary Icon Award". At the ceremony, she sang 4 Non Blondes's "What's Up" in tribute to the vocalist and guitarist's band Linda Perry, who sang "Bad Romance".
Lady Gaga confirmed via her Twitter account that she would be joining the cast of FX's hit horror-drama American Horror Story for its fifth season, subtitled Hotel. Also via Twitter, Ryan Murphy, the co-creator of the series, revealed that Gaga would be involved in a love triangle with Finn Wittrock and Matt Bomer.
Artistry
Musical style
Continually experimenting with new musical ideas and images, Gaga's musical and performance style is the subject of much analysis and scrutiny from critics. She professes that she is "liberating" herself by constantly reinventing her sound and image, insisting that she has been drawn to such a practice since her childhood. Vocally, Gaga possesses the range of a contralto and exhibits "overwhelming expression, instinctive vocal phrasing, '80s rock reminiscent chest belts and animalistic vocal ticks" while being able to move through 2.7 octaves. Refusing to lip sync, Gaga â€" whose range is frequently compared to those of Madonna and Gwen Stefani â€" has manipulated her vocal style over the course of her career yet considers Born This Way (2011) "much more vocally up to par with what I've always been capable of." In summation of her voice, Entertainment Weekly wrote, "There's an immense emotional intelligence behind the way she uses her voice. Almost never does she overwhelm a song with her vocal ability, recognizing instead that artistry is to be found in nuance rather than lung power."
Although her early lyrics have been criticized for lacking intellectual stimulation, "[Gaga] does manage to get you moving and grooving at an almost effortless pace." Gaga believes that "all good music can be played at a piano and still sound like a hit." She has covered a wide variety of topics in her songs: while The Fame (2008) meditates on the lust for stardom, The Fame Monster (2009) expresses fame's dark side through monster metaphors. Born This Way (2011) is sung in English, French, German, and Spanish and includes common themes in Gaga's controversial songwriting such as sex, love, religion, money, drugs, identity, liberation, sexuality, freedom, and individualism.
Her music style has been described as electropop and as dance-pop and the structure of her music is said to be influenced by classic 1980s pop and 1990s Europop. Her debut album The Fame (2008) provoked The Sunday Times to assert "in combining music, fashion, art and technology, [Gaga] evokes Madonna, Gwen Stefani circa 'Hollaback Girl', Kylie Minogue 2001 or Grace Jones right now" and a critic from The Boston Globe to comment that she draws "obvious inspirations from Madonna to Gwen Stefani... in [her] girlish but sturdy pipes and bubbly beats." Music critic Simon Reynolds wrote that "Everything about Gaga came from electroclash, except the music, which wasn't particularly 1980s, just ruthlessly catchy naughties pop glazed with Auto-Tune and undergirded with R&B-ish beats." The follow-up The Fame Monster (2009), saw Gaga's taste for pastiche, drawing on "Seventies arena glam, perky ABBA disco and sugary throwbacks like Stacey Q" while Born This Way (2011) also draws on the records of her childhood and still has the "electro-sleaze beats and Eurodisco chorus chants" of its predecessor but includes genres as diverse as opera, heavy metal, disco, and rock and roll. "There isn't a subtle moment on the album, but even at its nuttiest, the music is full of wide-awake emotional details," wrote Rolling Stone, who concluded: "The more excessive Gaga gets, the more honest she sounds." With 2014's Cheek to Cheek, Gaga dabbled in the jazz genre. Although critically appreciated for her love of the music and the songs she recorded on the album, Gaga was noted for trying to switch genres and "her rhythmically square, shouty delivery" vocals sounding more like a broadway singer than a real jazz musician.
Influences
Gaga grew up listening to artists such as The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Mariah Carey, The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Whitney Houston, Elton John, Blondie and Garbage, who all significantly influenced her. She also cited heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath as her favorite musicians.
"I am a real family girl. When it comes to love and loyalty, I am very old-fashioned. And I am quite down-to-earth for such an eccentric person", she insists. "I'm quite traditional in the family sense. I've always been that way." According to Gaga, Joanne Germanotta â€" her aunt who died of lupus, aged 19 â€" lives on through her and inspires all of her music and art. Joanne's date of death is tattooed on Gaga's body and, despite dying 12 years before her birth, Gaga commented, "I really believe I have two hearts. I think I actually carry two souls in my body, and that I'm living out the rest of her life and her goodness â€" she died a virgin, she died never having experienced all these things that we all get to love and experience in our lives."
Another spiritual influence on Gaga has been the Indian physician, public speaker, and writer Deepak Chopra. Labeling him a "true inspiration", she stated that "he's always reminded me to work in a life of service to my fans and to fulfill my vision and my destiny" in addition to thinking about Chopra when it comes to her work as a musician: "I want so much for it to go beyond the music for my fans." Gaga also lifted a quote from Osho's book Creativity on Twitter. When asked about her connection to him, Gaga said she was influenced by his work and that, for her, "the creativity is the greatest way of rebellion": "Equality", she concluded, "is one of the most important things in my life."
Musically, Gaga takes influence from numerous musicians from dance-pop singers like Madonna and Michael Jackson to glam rock artists like David Bowie and Queen whilst employing the theatrics of artists like Andy Warhol and of her musical theater roots in performance. "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again" by Andy Warhol has been noted for shaping Gaga's approach to celebrity. Warhol advised that enigmatic blankness generates an allure that could serve as the basis of fame. Some identify the mystery surrounding the "Gaga" identity as such a strategy.
The Queen song "Radio Ga Ga" inspired her stage name: "I adored Freddie Mercury and Queen had a hit called 'Radio Gaga'. That's why I love the name [.....] Freddie was uniqueâ€"one of the biggest personalities in the whole of pop music," she commented. Gaga has often been compared to Madonna who admits that she sees herself reflected in Gaga. In response to the comparisons, Gaga stated, "I don't want to sound presumptuous, but I've made it my goal to revolutionize pop music. The last revolution was launched by Madonna 25 years ago" in addition to commenting that "there is really no one that is a more adoring and loving Madonna fan than me. I am the hugest fan personally and professionally."
Like Madonna, Gaga has continued to reinvent herself and, over the years of her career, has drawn musical inspiration from a diverse mix of artists including Whitney Houston, Grace Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Blondie singer Debbie Harry, the Scissor Sisters, Prince, Marilyn Manson, Yoko Ono, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera. Gaga has mentioned Spears in several interviews, and revealed, "Britney certainly doesn't need any freakin' tips from me! Britney Spears is the queen of pop. I was learning from her." Gaga also paid tribute to Spears during the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards with the MTV Video Vanguard Award, adding that the pop singer "taught us all how to be fearless, and the industry wouldn't be the same without her."
Gaga has identified fashion as a major influence and has been stylistically compared to Leigh Bowery, Isabella Blow, and Cher. She commented that "as a child, she somehow absorbed Cher's out-there fashion sense and made it her own." She has considered Donatella Versace her muse and the late English fashion designer and close friend Alexander McQueen as an inspiration, admitting that "I miss Lee every time I get dressed" while channeling him in some of her work. In turn, Versace calls Lady Gaga "the fresh Donatella". Modeled on Andy Warhol's Factory, Gaga has her own creative production team, which she handles personally, called the Haus of Gaga, who create many of her clothes, stage props, and hairdos. Her adoration of fashion came from her mother, who she stated was "always very well kept and beautiful." In an interview with Larry King, she stated that after her own mother and grandmother, the most important woman to her was 20th century fashion icon Princess Diana, "I love Princess Diana so much. She was an enormous influence on me when I was younger because my mother worshipped her so much. When she died, I'll never forget, my mother was crying. It was this very powerful moment in my childhood watching my mother so connected to someone".
"When I'm writing music, I'm thinking about the clothes I want to wear on stage. It's all about everything altogetherâ€"performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me, it's everything coming together and being a real story that will bring back the super-fan. I want to bring that back. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of us." Gaga made her runway debut at Thierry Mugler's Paris fashion show in March 2011 where she wore items from Nicola Formichetti's debut women's wear collection. She has since devoted her time as a fashion columnist for V magazine, where she has written about her creative process, her studying of the world of pop culture, and her ability to tune into the evolution of pop-culture meme.
The Global Language Monitor named "Lady Gaga" as the Top Fashion Buzzword with her trademark "no pants" a close third. Entertainment Weekly put her outfits on its end of the decade "best-of" list, saying, "Whether it's a dress made of Muppets or strategically placed bubbles, Gaga's outré ensembles brought performance art into the mainstream." Time Magazine placed Gaga on their "All-Time 100 Fashion Icons List" amongst some of Gaga's inspirations such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, and The Beatles, stating: "Lady Gaga is just as notorious for her outrageous style as she is for her pop hits. After all, Gaga, born Stefani Germanotta, has sported outfits made from plastic bubbles, Kermit the Frog dolls, and raw meat."
Videos and stage
With constant costume changes, backup dancers, and provocative visuals, Gaga's music videos are often described as short films. "Being provocative is not just about getting people's attention. It's about saying something that really affects people in a real way, in a positive way," she professes. Exploring bondage and sadomasochism in addition to highlighting prevalent feminist themes, "the three central themes that shape Lady Gaga's music videos are sex, violence, and power." "Vaudevillian and carnal, Lady Gaga has got the knack of sending rape-like fantasiesâ€"in songs and videos that double as catch club hitsâ€"to the top of the charts," wrote The Wall Street Journal. "Whether it is physical violence or sexual exploitation, these videos offer vivid depictions of male power over women's bodies," wrote another. While she labels herself "a little bit of a feminist" and asserts that she is "sexually empowering women," Gaga strives to empower young women to stand up for what they believe in. She also attempts to liberate her fans so they can feel "less alone." "She not only reiterates her assertion of total originality," professed pop critic Ann Powers, "but also finesses it until it's both a philosophical stance about how constructing a persona from pop-cultural sources can be an expression of a person's truthâ€"a la those drag queens Gaga sincerely admiresâ€"and a bit of a feminist act." In summation of her videos, Rolling Stone used the rhetoric: "does anyone look to a Lady Gaga video for restraint?"
Her performances are described as "highly entertaining and innovative"; the blood-spurting performance of "Paparazzi" at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards was described as "eye-popping" by MTV. She continued the "blood soaked" theme during The Monster Ball Tour, in which she wore a revealing leather corset and was "attacked" by a performer dressed in black who gnaws on her throat, causing "blood" to spurt down her chest, after which she lies "dying" in a pool of blood. Her performances of that scene in England triggered protests from family groups and fans in the aftermath of a local tragedy, in which a taxi driver had murdered 12 people. "What happened in Bradford is very fresh in people's minds and given all the violence which happened in Cumbria just hours earlier, it was insensitive," said Lynn Costello of Mothers Against Violence. Her unconventionality continued at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards: performing in drag as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone, and delivering a lovesick monologue before a performance of her song "You and I". Some have defended her flamboyant and provocative behavior. "Well, she's Lady Gaga," Chris Rock said. "She's not 'Lady Behave Yourself.' Do you want great behavior from a person named Gaga? Is this what you were expecting?" As Gaga's choreographer and creative director, Laurieann Gibson provided material for her shows and videos for four years. However, the pair parted in November 2011; Gaga replacing her with Gibson's assistant Richard Jackson. Gaga admits to being a perfectionist when it comes to her elaborate shows. "I'm very bossy. I can scream my head off if I see one light fixture out. I'm very detailed â€" every minute of the show has got to be perfect."
Public image
While Chris Molanphy from Rolling Stone named Gaga the "Queen of Pop" in a ranking published by the magazine in 2011; public reception of Gaga's music, fashion sense and persona are polarized. Her status as a role model, self-esteem booster for her fans, trailblazer and fashion icon who breathes new life into the industry is by turns affirmed and denied. Gaga's albums have received mostly positive reviews and critics have pointed out her unique place in pop music, the need for new movements in popular culture, the attention Gaga brings to modern social issues, and the inherently subjective nature of her art. Gaga wore a dress made of raw beef to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards which was supplemented by boots, a purse, and a hat that were also all made out of raw beef. Partly awarded in recognition of the dress, Vogue.com UK named her one of the Best Dressed people of 2010 while Time magazine's named the dress the Fashion Statement of 2010. However, it received divided opinions, attracting the attention of worldwide media but also invoking the fury of animal rights organization PETA. In view of her influence on modern culture and her rise to global fame, sociologist Mathieu Deflem of the University of South Carolina has organized a course titled "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of the Fame" since spring 2011 with the objective of unravelling "some of the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga." When Gaga briefly met with US president Barack Obama at a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser, he described the interaction as "intimidating" as she was dressed in 16-inch heels making her undoubtedly the tallest woman in the room.
Towards the end of 2008, comparisons were made between the fashions of Gaga and recording artist Christina Aguilera that noted similarities in their styling, hair, and make-up. Aguilera stated that she was "completely unaware of [Gaga]" and "didn't know if it [was] a man or a woman." When interviewed by Barbara Walters for her annual ABC News special 10 Most Fascinating People in 2009, Gaga dismissed the claim that she is intersex as an urban legend. Responding to a question on this issue, she stated, "At first it was very strange and everyone sorta said, 'That's really quite a story!' But in a sense, I portray myself in a very androgynous way, and I love androgyny." In addition to Aguilera's statement, comparisons continued into 2010, when Aguilera released the music video of her single "Not Myself Tonight". Critics noted similarities between the song and its accompanying music video with Gaga's video for "Bad Romance". There have also been similar comparisons made between Gaga's style and that of fashion icon Dale Bozzio from the band Missing Persons. Some have considered their respective images to be strikingly parallel although fans of Missing Persons note that Bozzio had pioneered the look more than thirty years earlier.
While devout followers call Gaga "Mother Monster", Gaga often refers to her fans as "Little Monsters" which has been tattooed on "the arm that holds my mic" in dedication. To some, this dichotomy contravenes the concept of outsider culture. Camille Paglia in her 2010 cover story "Lady Gaga and the death of sex" in The Sunday Times asserts that Gaga "is more an identity thief than an erotic taboo breaker, a mainstream manufactured product who claims to be singing for the freaks, the rebellious and the dispossessed when she is none of those." Writing for The Guardian, Kitty Empire opined that the dichotomy "...allows the viewer to have a 'transgressive' experience without being required to think. At [her performance's] core, though, is the idea that Gaga is at one with the freaks and outcasts. The Monster Ball is where we can all be free. This is arrant nonsense, as the scads of people buying Gaga's cunningly commercial music are not limited to the niche worlds of drag queens and hip night creatures from which she draws her inspiration. But Gaga seems sincere." Gaga has also launched "littlemonsters.com", the first official social network devoted to fans of an artist that went online in July 2012.
In 2012, Gaga become a feature of a temporary exhibition The Elevated. From the Pharaoh to Lady Gaga marking the 150th anniversary of the National Museum in Warsaw. An exhibition devoted to the mechanisms and the iconography of power was co-financed from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage funds. Its purpose was to show the ubiquity of hierarchy from antiquity to the present. The central showpiece of the exhibition was the effigy of two women who had achieved a high status in the society of its time. Gaga was presented in a dress of raw meat, described by Polish weekly Wprost as "an icon of modernity elevated by the power which she exercises over mass media, a prominent specialist in creating her own image". The meat dress was later displayed at the National Museum of Women in the Arts located in Washington, D.C. with an explanation of her political message.
Gaga has been commemorated in the scientific names of several organisms. A new genus of ferns, Gaga, and two species, G. germanotta and G. monstraparva have been named in her honor. The name monstraparva" alluded to Gaga's fans known as "little monsters" since their symbol is the outstretched "monster claw" hand, which bears a striking resemblance to a tightly in-rolled young fern leaf prior to unfurling. Gaga also has an extinct mammal, Gagadon, and a parasitic wasp, Aleiodes gaga, named for her.
Activism
Philanthropy
Besides her career in music, Gaga has also contributed to various charities. For natural disasters, Gaga has helped various relief efforts. Although declining an invitation to appear on the single "We Are the World 25" to benefit victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she donated the proceeds of her concert of January 24, 2010 at New York's Radio City Music Hall to the country's reconstruction relief fund. All profits from her official online store on that day were also donated. Gaga announced that an estimated total of US$500,000 was collected for the fund. Hours after the 2011 TÅhoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, 2011, Gaga tweeted a message and a link to Japan Prayer Bracelets. All revenue from a bracelet she designed in conjunction with the company was donated to relief efforts. As of March 29, 2011, the bracelets raised $1.5Â million. However, attorney Alyson Oliver filed a lawsuit against Gaga in Detroit in June 2011, noting that the bracelet was subject to a sales tax and an extra $3.99 shipping charge was added to the price. She also believed that not all proceeds from the bracelets would go to the relief efforts, demanding a public accounting of the campaign and refunds for people who had bought the bracelet. Gaga's spokesperson called the lawsuit "meritless" and "misleading". On June 25, 2011, Gaga performed at MTV Japan's charity show in Makuhari Messe, which benefited the Japanese Red Cross.
In October 2012, Gaga was reported to have met the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, at the Ecuadorean embassy in London. On October 9, 2012, Yoko Ono gave Gaga and four other activists the LennonOno Grant for Peace in ReykjavÃk, Iceland. On November 6, 2012, Gaga pledged to donate $1 million to the American Red Cross to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Gaga also contributes in the fight against HIV and AIDS, focusing on educating young women about the risks of the disease. In collaboration with Cyndi Lauper, Gaga joined forces with MAC Cosmetics to launch a line of lipstick under their supplementary cosmetic line, Viva Glam. In a press release, Gaga declared, "I don't want Viva Glam to be just a lipstick you buy to help a cause. I want it to be a reminder when you go out at night to put a condom in your purse right next to your lipstick." The sales of Gaga-endorsed Viva Glam lipstick and lipgloss have raised more than $202 million to fight HIV and AIDS.
Born This Way Foundation
In 2012, she launched the Born This Way Foundation (BTWF), a non-profit organization that focuses on youth empowerment and issues like self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying, mentoring, and career development. It takes its name from the 2011 single and album. The foundation plans to work with a number of partners, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The California Endowment, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Media proprietor Oprah Winfrey, writer Deepak Chopra, and United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius spoke at the inauguration at Harvard University. The foundation's original funding included $1.2 million from Gaga, $500,000 from the MacArthur Foundation, and $850,000 from Barneys New York. The foundation works in partnership with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, the MacArthur Foundation, the California Endowment, and, as lead media partner, Viacom. In July 2012, the BTWF partnered with Office Depot, which will donate 25% of the sales-a minimum of $1million-of a series of limited edition back-to-school products that promote the foundation's message The foundation's initiatives have included, in Marchâ€"April 2012, a poster competition that asked participants to submit images that answer the question "What does bravery mean to you?"; the "Born Brave Bus" that would follow her on tour as a youth drop-in center as an initiative against bullying, and the "Born Brave" community and school groups.
LGBT advocacy
Gaga is an outspoken activist for LGBT rights worldwide. She attributes much of her early success as a mainstream artist to her gay fans and is considered a gay icon. Early in her career she had difficulty getting radio airplay, and stated, "The turning point for me was the gay community." She thanked FlyLife, a Manhattan-based LGBT marketing company with whom her label Interscope works, in the liner notes of The Fame. One of her first televised performances was in May 2008 at the NewNowNext Awards, an awards show aired by the LGBT television network Logo. In June of the same year, she performed at the San Francisco Pride event. After The Fame was released, she revealed that the song "Poker Face" was about her bisexuality. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she spoke about how her boyfriends tended to react to her bisexuality, saying "The fact that I'm into women, they're all intimidated by it. It makes them uncomfortable. They're like, 'I don't need to have a threesome. I'm happy with just you'." When she appeared as a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in May 2009, she praised DeGeneres for being "an inspiration for women and for the gay community".
She called the October 11, 2009, National Equality March rally on the National Mall "the single most important event of her career." Gaga attended the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards accompanied by four gay and lesbian former members of the United States Armed Forces who had been unable to serve openly under the U.S. military's "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy. Gaga released three videos on YouTube urging her fans to contact their Senators in an effort to overturn DADT. In September 2010 she spoke at a Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's rally in Portland, Maine. Following this event, editors of The Advocate commented that she had become a "fierce advocate" for gays and lesbians. Gaga appeared at Europride, a pan-European international event dedicated to LGBT pride, held in Rome in June 2011. She criticized the intolerant state of gay rights in many European countries and described gay people as "revolutionaries of love". Gaga was ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church Monastery so that she could officiate the wedding of long-time friends, both of whom were women.
Other activism
In 2015, Gaga signed an open letter which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures for; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa, which will start to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 that will establish new development goals for the generation.
Achievements
As of April 2015, Gaga had sold an estimated 28 million albums and 140 million singles worldwide and her singles are some of the best-selling worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists. She is also noted as a touring force as she has grossed more than $300 million in revenue from 3.2 million tickets for her first three worldwide concert tours. Her other achievements include 6 Grammy Awards, 13 MTV Video Music Awards, 13 Guinness World Records, and a Songwriters Hall of Fame's Contemporary Icon Award, in which she was the first artist ever to win.
Gaga has consecutively appeared on Billboard magazine's Artists of the Year (scoring the definitive title in 2010), ranked fourth in VH1's list of 100 Greatest Women in Music, is the fifth best selling digital singles artist in US according to RIAA, became the first woman to receive the Digital Diamond Award from RIAA, is regularly placed on lists composed by Forbes magazine, including their list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women from 2010 to 2014, and was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
Discography
- The Fame (2008)
- The Fame Monster (2009)
- Born This Way (2011)
- Artpop (2013)
- Cheek to Cheek (2014)
Filmography
- Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
- Machete Kills (2013)
- Muppets Most Wanted (2014)
- Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)
Concerts
See also
- Honorific nicknames in popular music
- List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
- List of best-selling music artists
- Top 10 artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
References
Further reading
- Goodman, Elizabeth (2010). Lady Gaga: Critical Mass Fashion. St. Martin's Press. ISBNÂ 0-312-66840-6.Â
- Gray, Richard J., ed. (2012). The Performance Identities of Lady Gaga : Critical Essays. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-6830-0.Â
- Halberstam, J. Jack (2012). Gaga Feminism : Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-1098-3.Â
- Herbert, Emily (2010). Lady Gaga: Queen of Pop. John Blake Publishing. ISBNÂ 978-1-84454-963-4.Â
- Morgan, Johnny (2010). Gaga. Sterling Publishing. ISBNÂ 1-4027-8059-1.Â
- Parvis, Sarah (2010). Lady Gaga. Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBNÂ 0-7407-9795-6.Â
- Phoenix, Helia (2010). Lady Gaga: Just Danceâ€"The Biography. Orion Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4091-1567-0.Â
- Monster Anthems (2011) by Robert Christgau
External links
- Official website
- Lady Gaga at the Internet Movie Database
- Lady Gaga at Rotten Tomatoes